


Alive

by Waterlogged_Kazoo



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Crew as Family, Gen, M/M, Mugiwara no Ichimi | Straw Hat Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 05:22:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28558278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waterlogged_Kazoo/pseuds/Waterlogged_Kazoo
Summary: Brook had loved life, but he never loved his second "life" after death, until he met them.
Relationships: Brook & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates, Brook/Calico Yorki
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Time for some good ol' Brook angst because I love him and his character is so interesting and complex and I love this funky little man. Brook needs a hug. Also there's no tag for the Rumbar Pirates and I'm mad >:( 
> 
> Also trigger warning for mentions of gore/decay/dark imagery!! Pls be careful if you're not comfy with that, ily

Brook had always loved physical affection. 

Though his passion was creating stories and emotions through his music and lyrics, he firmly believed that actions spoke louder than words, and that was how he expressed his love for the Rumbar Pirates.

Hugs, handshakes, pats-on-the-back, even the occasional drunken kiss, were all methods that Brook used to display the joy he felt for the rambunctious, musical crew, and they did the same for him. He relished the feeling of warmth and fuzziness that would spread through his body at the contact of flesh against flesh.

While the rest of his crew would receive his affections with gratitude, knowing it was the scrawny man's language of comradery, they never welcomed it as fully as their captain did. Which was, of course, to be expected. Yorki and Brook's dynamic never truly fit the description of simply crewmates.

Every night, when the musician pirates had drunk themselves to sleep and lay scattered and snoring through the bunks of the ship or even the deck, the captain and first mate would retreat to their cabin, where they could bask in the warmth of the affection that only lovers could provide. Jackets, hats, and shoes discarded, Yorki and Brook would rest soundly in each other's embrace, in a soft and tender quiet that rarely occurred on such a ship. 

Their physical affection not only took the form of snuggles and tangled limbs, but also in the tiniest gestures. Brook loved to trace his husband's face. As they lay on their sides facing each other, the taller man's hands would card through Yorki's long, pale yellow hair, smoothing out the tangles gained from a rowdy day on the sea. Slender fingers would ghost their way to his chin and cheek, following the lines of the dark tattoos that stood out starkly against pale skin. The fingers would slide over the slight texture of an unshaven jaw, and Brook would tease his lover for his sandpaper stubble, earning a sleepy laugh for his efforts. Yorki would prop himself up on his elbow and lean over to place a gentle kiss on his husband's full, smiling lips, before resting his head on Brook's shoulder to sleep. Wrapping his arms around the blonde man, Brook would close his own eyes, wishing he could always feel this secure.

Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever.

Yorki became ill. With each passing day, the hope of recovery became lesser and lesser as Brook watched the spirit and joy slowly fade from the man he loved. The Rumbar captain refused to let Brook hold him, however desperately they both wanted it. Yorki couldn't bear the thought of spreading his plague to his husband and crew. But when it came time for him to be left behind for the safety of his friends, Brook held Yorki close, ignoring the risks as they both sobbed late into the night, mourning the future they would never get to complete.

After Yorki's departure, Brook's spirit only seemed to fade more every day. The comforting embrace of his crewmates, the men he now led, couldn't compare to the sweetness of what he had lost. He did his best to keep up morale for their sake, but it became harder, especially near the end.

When the crew all lay dying, many already dead, and the idea of a final song was raised, Brook sang and played the best he could, even as the unavoidable pain and numbness slowly crawled through his bloody body. He sang for Laboon, hoping the little whale would forgive them for breaking their promise. He sang for his crew, his shoulders clenching every time he heard a body drop. He sang for Yorki, desperately pleading against fate that his husband would overcome the odds and survive. 

When Brook alone remained, his final thought, as he succumbed to the creeping darkness and fell to the ground, was if that mysterious revival fruit would truly work, and if it was even worth it. 

He was almost disappointed when it did.

For roughly a year he floated around in a fleeting form, settled somewhere in a point between unconsciousness and awareness as his soul drifted over the murky and foggy sea, searching for the lifeless ship almost purely on instinct. Eventually Brook found it, though when he saw the crumbling state of his friends' corpses- and his own -he wished he hadn't. If he had been physically capable of throwing up at the time, he would've. There didn't seem to be any other option, so he glided towards the rotting shell of what had once been his own body, half expecting to die again as soon as he entered the mass of gore. When he surprisingly became fully conscious again, it became clear that the devil fruit Brook had eaten was much more stubborn than he had originally thought, in terms of keeping him alive. All of his senses seemed intact, though anything that would usually be required to do so had long since rotted away. 

Brook gingerly began to move his body, testing the waters. He soon realized that any form of sensation was now experienced through the surface of his bones, seeing as the remaining stubborn shreds of flesh were much too far gone to be of any use. The musician almost saw a grim humour in it; the Revive-Revive fruit really had covered everything. 

With a shudder, Brook realized he'd have to clean up. Clean up the remains of his muscles, flesh, and tissue until he had nothing left but shiny ivory bones. He'd have to clean up the bodies of his crewmates, too. The thought was so horrid it left him numb. 

He went about the action in a trance-like state, first taking care of his own body, as he didn't feel prepared to fully face the death that surrounded him. Brook took up his cane sword and unsheathed it. The blade seemed, surprisingly, to have been unharmed by the gnawing passage of time. He used the blade to scrape away his own remains, staring at the clumps of muscle and skin as they flopped to the floor around him. The only salvageable aspect of his appearance was his hair. The process must have taken hours, but he had no way of knowing. He was still processing the fact that he was dead. Or alive? Or both?

He threw his own remains overboard, and Brook stood frozen as he watched what had once been his flesh, his blood… what had once been him sink below the dark waves. 

He did his best to give his crew a proper burial, wrapping their remains in blankets or sheets before letting them slide over the edge and into the neverending sea. Most of the bodies were unrecognizable, and could only be identified by the scraps that remained of their clothing. 

Once the ugly work was finished, Brook collapsed to his knees, finally feeling the weight of what had happened slam down on his lifeless shoulders. He glanced at his own reflection in the shards of a beer bottle on the floor, and a hollow white skull stared back at him. There was nothing left of him. His face that had made Yorki and so many others feel joyous simply by smiling along with it had slipped away and been replaced by an horrifying, undead creature. Brook discovered that he could, in fact, still cry.

…

The time passed agonizingly slowly. Brook spent days doing nothing but talking himself, singing to an empty void, and performing party tricks with no one around to watch. Days turned to weeks, to months, to years, until the skeleton had been stranded on that useless ship for nearly half a century. There were many times that he contemplated walking off the edge and letting himself slip into the dark, but Brook knew his soul wouldn't be able to rest soundly if he wasted this chance to fulfil his promise to Laboon, in honour of his fallen crew, and his fallen lover. 

He wished for many things during those awful fifty years. Brook wished to eat, though he had no need for nourishment. He wished for sleep, though the nightmares made it nearly impossible. But most of all, he wished for company. Brook missed the wild antics of his late crew and the energy and life that coursed through the air as they performed. He missed Yorki's smile, his laugh, his humour, his everything. Brook missed the feeling of life, of living. His soul may be settled in a body, and he may think and feel, but he was not alive.

Not until he met them.

…

When he met other people for the first time in five decades, he couldn't process his joy until much later. Brook fought for them, laughed with them, performed for them, and eventually joined them. In a weepy manifest of friendship, he was welcomed into their strange ragtag family, and he loved and was loved. He was clingy, constantly hugging for the smallest reasons, talking for hours on end, and cuddling all through the night in a pile of living, breathing, loving bodies. They held him close, holding his thin, ivory hands, stroking his hair, laughing at his jokes. Brook knew these people were his home, his crew, his reason. Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Franky, and later Jinbei, were all he ever needed to survive the cruel history he was burdened with. He knew Yorki would have liked them too.

The Strawhats were Brook's life. For the first time in fifty years, he was alive, fully and truly alive. And there was no force of the world that would ever take that away. 

Finally, Brook was happy to be alive.


End file.
